Thankful
by Shanlashelle
Summary: Ever since Beth joined the BAU she and Reid have been nearly inseparable; And yet, He isn't being totally honest with her. After she invites him to spend the holiday with her family, secrets begin to come forth. Will they be Thankful? {The first of 5 parts}


_"I've never known a woman to look quite so beautiful with sweet potato pie smeared across her face," Spencer said._

 _Coming to stand just a hair's breadth away from her, he took her chin lightly between his index and thumb, and titled her face to the left, bringing his tongue to sweep over the sweet confectionery that stained her pale cheek._

 **Five Days Earlier-**

"I just don't understand why there aren't more decorations for Thanksgiving," Garcia only half argued, beginning to hand out tiny cornucopia shaped cookies to those around her.

Taking a bite out of the small bounty he'd been handed, Rossi shrugged, "Leave it to Penelope to want to bring the holiday spirit into everything."

Rolling her eyes, Garcia handed a cookie to Kate and continued, "There's all this fuss about Santa, before we even get to the good holiday! Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas, but come on, it's a holiday about food!"

They all stopped and glanced around as if they were waiting for something to happen, or rather, _someone_. A few short moments passed, there was nothing.

"Wow. I definitely thought Spence was going to have something to say about that one." J.J. grinned, giving the group a laugh.

"Hold on," Kate interjected. "Not saying I don't agree but," Taking a bite of her cookie, she paused to offer a hum of approval and continued, "I just drove by a place on my way in this morning, it had this ridiculous looking inflatable turkey up on the front lawn."

"Yeah, Babygirl. I don't think Thanksgiving's suffering too much." Morgan chuckled, taking a sip from his coffee cup.

"Giant and inflatable seems to be the thing this year," J.J. tacked on, "Henry wants a giant inflatable snow globe for some odd reason and Hotch was just telling me Jack asked Jessica to buy some kind of inflatable something or other for their place too."

"Jack wouldn't need to buy anything, he could just sit his dad's ego out in the yard." Morgan said, grinning.

"Whoa!" J.J. laughed, Just as Hotch came out of his office and headed down the hall, glancing only briefly at the team.

"Careful there, Morgan. We'll all be out of a job." Kate warned, wagging a finger.

"Hey, I call 'em as I see 'em."

"There's plenty of room at my place if you ever do get kicked out on the street, my vision." Garcia flirted in her usual way, batting long lashes in the man's direction.

The group continued on down their holiday decorated road of no return, joking and teasing one another as if there were no tomorrow. All of them, finished with their work for the day and without any real reason to go rushing out the door-

Beth sat silently at her desk, only half listening and idly clicking at the screen of her desktop, hopefully effectively succeeding in making herself look busy. Still, there was no hiding that her mind was somewhere else. As her coworkers stood around the bullpen, shamelessly distracting her, she silently thanked them for being at least, a partial excuse for her lack of productivity.

Beth wanted desperately to join in, but she had far more pressing matters to tend to, such as the stack of files on her desk.

It was as if she were a fisherman out at sea, staring off into the distance and the large stack of manila files, a looming creature appearing from the fog, ready to take her down; or she was just being dramatic. Probably the latter. Definitely the latter. She huffed and rested her head in her palms for a moment, before pulling them back through her blonde hair in frustration. It wasn't that Beth wasn't good at her job, no. She was actually brilliant, a perfectionist- it was the reason she'd moved up to the BAU in the first place, but that was also the problem. Even something as mundane as writing the same story over twenty times had to be perfect, that meant it would take forever and because it would take forever, she procrastinated. It was a vicious cycle. And at the other side of it all, was the question of how she would convince Spencer to spend the holiday with herself and her family back in Georgia.

Beth had been with the Virginia group for a year so far, and still felt so new that she called most of the agents by their full names, as not to get herself into trouble. Even Penelope was Ms. Penelope Garcia on most occasions. As if that wasn't bad enough, Beth often said it to her face, earning herself a _tsk, tsk_ from the bubbly techie.

She didn't give out any cute nicknames to anyone like she'd done back in Georgia, minus the one she'd given Spencer; One that technically, he had no idea existed because she hadn't shared and truthfully, had no intention of doing so.

Spencer Reid, who shortly after joining the team, Beth realized lived just a town over from hers. She would often meet up with him at the nearest coffee shop, if not one of their homes, and walk to work. He would explain Star Trek to her and she caught him up on the latest pop-culture news. This week, Bake Shelton and Gwen Stefani were dating, next week, they probably wouldn't be.

In time, the two analysts had gotten so close Beth found herself developing a tiny attraction to the other. The way he fixed things that she accidentally left even two centimeters out of place, or the way he got snippy if pushed too far and even the way he would sometimes wear almost full suits into work. It was a pleasure to function so closely with a man of his talents, of which were many.

After discussing briefly with her older sister Maggie only days before, Beth had been convinced to invite her "friend," her sibling having said it in an overly flirtatious manner through the phone, to their yearly family feast; And though Spencer had already told her he'd probably be spending the actual holiday alone, considering he had no plans outside of Rossi's annual potluck, meaning it was actually Garcia's potluck, that Rossi had been forced into hosting, and visiting his mother the day after.

Beth probably should have been alright with that, Spencer sure seemed as if he was, but it just didn't feel right to her. Beth had grown up on a farm, surrounded by family and friends, so when Spencer had told her his mother lived alone because she didn't like big cities, Beth almost couldn't comprehend it. Given, her own father was a private man, but he loved people.

Chewing at the back of her ballpoint pin, the woman considered asking him to bring his mother, if she lived anywhere near the farm, maybe they could just pick her up. No one, regardless of how much they disliked people, should have to be alone on Thanksgiving, that included the genius. But first, she had to get the question out there.

What if he said no? He had every right to, after all. He didn't owe her a Thanksgiving, but she felt she owed him something-

Spencer had been the first, after Hotchner, to welcome her to the team: An awkward handshake, the update on how long it had been since they last saw each other after meeting in Georgia on a case, where Beth previously worked, Beneath the watchful eye of Dawn, who bossed her around- Spencer remembered, and he took the liberty of reminding her before running down the list of how long newbies usually lasted at the BAU, before leaving for whatever reasons they may have had. It was sweet, in a weird, sterile sort of way. Next thing the girl knew, they were sitting in a coffee shop, discussing the weird way Strauss reminded her of Dawn and how it was best to avoid her, at least for the time being and how he would gladly cover for her.

Yeah, Spencer had made her feel welcomed, Now it was her turn.

Thinking of which, where was Spencer? She had been just as surprised when he hadn't dropped in his two cents about how Thanksgiving wasn't about food at all, but about, well, whatever it was about. Glancing up for just a moment, she peeked over her shoulder to see if Spencer was still typing away as he'd been earlier, but the genius had since then wandered off somewhere, probably to retrieve more coffee.

Turning back to her own screen with a shrug, as she was about to lay her head down on the desk a familiar, yet sudden voice lit her nerves to life.

"Hey, are you alive there?"

Beth snapped her head back up at the genius' question, he was leaning just barely over her desk, waving a hand in front of her eyes.

"Yeah. I'm here. Alive." She responded halfheartedly, turning to face him.

"I got you coffee."

"How did you?"

"You were practically asleep, I just took the mug when you weren't daydreaming in my general direction. Figured you needed it, what with all… that." He said, referencing to the stack of disaster, she herself had been too afraid to make direct contact with. Holding out the mug, he pushed on.

"Take it."

"Thanks." Without meaning to, she nearly snatched the warm glass from his hand and brought it to her lips in a hurry, tossing back as much as she could.

"Don't burn yourself it's still pretty-"

"Ow!"

"Hot." The older male fought back a smirk, faintly amused by how quick to draw the newest member of the family could sometimes be.

"I noticed that, thanks." she grumbled, sitting the mug down and trying to hide the fact that she was sucking the pain out of her now sore, tongue.

He eyed her for a moment, before making his way around her seat and lifting some of the files from their stack, silently examining how many there were.

"You know, it really wouldn't take long if you just started. There are millions of reasons why people procrastinate, but it mainly stems from lack of motivation. You don't feel like doing the paperwork, therefore you don't do it. If you think about it in reverse however, and just start, it'll happen. As Burns wrote, in The Feeling Good Handbook, 1989, the doing comes first, and then the motivation.'"

The former Georgia farm girl only stared at him. Under any other circumstances she would have enjoyed his fact dropping, but right now, frustrated and swollen tongued, she just didn't want to hear it.

"Reid, please."

"I didn't mean to-"

"Reid, really. Just leave me be for a minute."

"Yeah, sure." He nodded, slipping the files he'd lifted under his arm, beginning to walk away from her desk in an attempt to leave her to her work.

"Wait, what are you doing with those?"

"Finishing them for you."

"Reid, no. I don't need your help, honest. You have your own-"

"Actually, I'm done." He grinned cheekily, turning his back to her and returning to his own desk.

Beth watched as he made himself comfortable and when he lifted his head, their eyes meeting again, her only response was an arched brow.

Could she ask him now? Should she ask him now? While everyone else was still too distracted to notice? She could just blurt it out, _"Reid, my dad is having this huge family dinner and I thought..."_

Thought what? That he was a lonely man who needed her to invite him to things,otherwise he couldn't possibly have a good time? Not a chance. Dammit. It wasn't true, she knew that much, but how the hell could she make him see that? Would he see that? He wasn't her boyfriend and yet, she was having just the same amount of luck she'd had with any of her ex-flings.

 _'Ahem'_

Beth shook the thought away; she was watching him, he was watching right back.

"You have work to do, as do I," Reid started, "Turn around. Get to it, Bethany Greene."

"Thank you." She mouthed the words silently in his direction.

Spencer only smiled, holding his full coffee mug up in her direction before taking a sip from it, and giving his full attention to file in front of him.

The woman noted that it wasn't just any mug, but the one she'd given him at last years team Thanksgiving potluck, shaped like the face of a terrified turkey. Feeling her cheeks heat up, Beth turned back to her own desk, lifted a file from the stack and opened it, taking another determined swig from her mug.

"Okay, I'm taking you down for a second time, creepy rapist lollipop guy."

Spencer's soft chuckle tickled her ear and she grinned herself, finally pressing a pen to the paper.


End file.
